


The Enola Holmes Protection Squad

by Natasja



Series: The Enola Holmes Adventures [2]
Category: Enola Holmes (2020)
Genre: Edith thinks the entire family is mad, Eudoria is trying her best, F/M, Gen, Lady Caroline ships it, Mary is amused, Not that she needs it, The Enola Holmes Protection Squad, and fancies herself a better teacher than Miss Harrisson, and not always as nice as she looks, but Eudoria and Enola have their redeeming qualities, but it isn't easy, but it's nice to not be alone, shame about the brothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27471370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natasja/pseuds/Natasja
Summary: Enola doesn't actually need protection, but there are those around her who are determined to give it anyway.It would be rude to tell them to stop it.
Relationships: Edith Grayston & Enola Holmes, Enola Holmes & Eudoria Vernet Holmes, Enola Holmes & Viscount "Tewky" Tewksbury's Mother, Enola Holmes/Viscount "Tewky" Tewksbury, Enola Homes & Mary Watson, Sherlock Holmes/Mary Morstan/John Watson
Series: The Enola Holmes Adventures [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007148
Comments: 9
Kudos: 175





	1. Lady Caroline Tewksbury, Dowager Marchioness of Basilweather

If asked, Lady Caroline Tewksbury, Dowager Marchioness of Basilweather, would happily admit to being extremely fond of Miss Enola Holmes, Lady Detective.

Not just as the first and only girl that her son had shown any kind of interest in, or as the young woman who had saved his life (while removing her infernal mother-in-law from the picture), either. Enola was intelligent, bold, and determined to carve her own path in life. In short, Enola reminded Lady Caroline of her younger self, the girl with big dreams and bigger plans, cheerfully ignoring anyone who said they were impossible fantasies.

Lady Caroline didn’t regret her life, her marriage to the late Lord Tewksbury or her son. Her life was what it was, and while she occasionally grieved for missed opportunities, it had not been wasted.

* * *

Lady Caroline had attended school with both Miss Harrisson and Miss Eudoria Goulden, later Holmes. She’d been the one that stopped the two from coming to blows, more often than not, even before Mr Holmes the Elder re-married the rather younger Eudoria to give his son a mother and himself intelligent companionship. That certainly hadn’t helped the situation, given twelve-year-old Miss Harrisson’s fondness for the young Mycroft Holmes.

While the other two had walked opposite paths, Lady Caroline had taken the middle road. A Marchioness couldn’t be seen to be part of the kind of activities the Women’s Social and Political Union got up to… but she could be a silent supporter, passing messages and helping to move people. Lady Caroline had never been arrested, or plastered all over the scandal sheets, but her work was more vital than most people knew, and one should never underestimate the power of a Society Hostess.

* * *

It wasn’t surprising that Eudoria had finally left hiding in plain sight behind, taking a more active role in changing the world before her step-son could get any ideas about his nearly-marriageable half-sister. If Lady Caroline had a daughter – and hadn’t needed to keep this hypothetical child out of her grandmother’s influence – she might well have done the same. If only there had been a way to do it without putting young Enola through so much turmoil.

Besides, who was to say that she wouldn’t gain that daughter in Enola, already well on her way to changing the world around her?

Lady Caroline loved her son dearly, and he and Enola were good for each other. They mostly agreed on matters of social reform, got on well enough, and had been through more together as friends than most married couples did in a lifetime. Certainly Lady Caroline would be a far less objectional mother-in-law than many of the other Society Matrons out there.

She put the winter capelet aside to foist off on Enola at the next opportunity, and picked up the vest she was embroidering, mentally planning the next tea lesson.

Enola had been right in that Miss Harrisson’s school was an abominable waste of her time. It was a school for girls to be taught how to be docile, obedient ornaments, not shape them into individual young women of note. Still, for all his high-handedness, Sherlock had also been correct that the gentler arts were also things worth knowing.

Enola knew some of that already, in her observations of how to dress when she was hiding, and Eudoria’s coded flower messages. Lady Caroline could teach the rest in ways far more palatable to Enola than the parroted lessons at a girl’s school. There were all kinds of ways of learning, after all, and Enola seemed to respond better to an informal, one-on-one approach.

Society teas were often invaluable sources of information and networking. The language of the fan was an excellent way to communicate urgently when planning and executing a covert operation. Body language could convey all sorts of secrets, and the art of getting men to do what you wanted while making them think it was their idea was never wasted.

Times were changing, after all, and Enola would play a role in that change.

But everyone needed guidance now and then, and Lady Caroline was happy to provide.


	2. Tewksbury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tewksbury has a say

Edward, Viscount Tewksbury and Marquis of Basilweather, would never quite get over walking into the sitting room for tea and seeing Enola taking embroidery lessons from his mother.

For all of Enola’s protests that she had been taught more useful things that the average young lady, his mother had somehow convinced her that the more traditional ladylike arts weren’t without value. (Tewksbury couldn’t wait to see how Mother persuaded Enola into comportment and etiquette lessons…) That didn’t make it any less startling when she’d given him a clumsily-embroidered handkerchief, with an expression that dared him to comment on the large stitches.

Tewksbury would never.

She’d managed to make the burdock look more like the scientific drawing he’d showed her, during one of their frequently-interrupted talks while he consulted on the kind of plants that might appear in her cases. Their first meeting might have been rather harrowing, but Tewksbury appreciated the memory. Not just because he got to watch the back of Enola in trousers, either.

House of Lords or no, Edward was a nineteen-year-old young man confronted with a wonderfully competent and opinionated young woman.

Edward, Viscount Tewksbury and Marquis of Basilweather, was seriously considering that the Holmes siblings weren’t the only ones with a type.

Even Mycroft, as much as he’d deny it. Tewksbury had seen how he glared at his political opposite when they got into a particularly passionate debate. It reminded him of the way Enola had looked at him in the early days, and the brusque fondness that Sherlock aimed at Dr and Mrs Watson. That was an unusual arrangement, but Tewksbury fancied himself as a progressive, and he was no stranger to ‘life-long butlers or valets’ or Ladies’ Companions who remained with their mistress beyond marriage.

Mother wanting to retain a friend who wasn’t on her Mother-in-Law’s payroll when she moved halfway across the country was certainly plausible. Grandmother had been something of a steamroller even before she tried to kill him. A stranger wouldn’t have noticed, but Tewksbury’s midnight escapades to the had led to him seeing Miss Smith emerging from his parents’ quarters rather later than would be expected, even when Father was in residence.

The only reason Tewksbury considered the matter of the Holmes siblings’ odd relationships was because he thought it best to be aware of what he was potentially marrying into.

Once they were both established in their careers, of course, and found out how they worked domestically.

* * *

Besides, it was fun to watch her older brothers twitch every time Edward mentioned or spoke to her in their hearing. He was reasonably sure that Mycroft had barely restrained himself from shouting across the Floor that Edward should just marry his sister and get it over with at least once. Mycroft was normally a lot more composed, but Enola’s latest case, involving a Gentleman very much unworthy of the title attempting to pin his supposed death on his older twin brother so as to depose him and take his place, had culminated in a wild chase into a session of the Lords, and Enola bringing the cad down in a flying tackle and a brief scuffle that ended when the Gentleman was bodily flipped into a table and menaced with a teapot.

(She’d done it in skirts and a corset, too. Miss Greyson would have been very proud of Enola’s technique.)

The sight absolutely had not led to some very interesting dreams over the following month or so. Certainly none that Edward would admit to.

Humming to himself, Tewksbury found a flower-seller near the House of Parliament. Lavender and Foxglove, twined around a rhododendron. A centrepiece of Aloe, and a border of tulips. The flower-seller gave him a very odd look, but complied when Tewksbury paid her triple. He did the same for the bow street runner who took it to Enola, as well.

A liveable wage was another item on his list of things to try and legislate.

Enola’s current case, according to the rumour mill of Parliamentary Lords and their wives who thought fussing over him would persuade him to support their husbands out of gratitude, was a set-up by a disgruntled former husband who had come out the worse when Enola produced evidence that allowed his wife to divorce him, taking the children and her money with her. Enola had been hired by the public lawyer, not the lady herself, and might not have made the connection.

Lavender and Foxglove were for distrust and incincerity. A Rhododendron meant danger, and Aloe was bitterness. Tulips were for passion, in this case a potential Crime of Passion. Working out the message might take Enola a few minutes longer than it would Tewksbury, but it would hold over until they met for lunch tomorrow.

Besides, Enola had a new friend from the case before this one, Lady Cecily Allistair, that she wanted to introduce him to. Anyone Enola spoke so fondly of could only be worth knowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, Tewksbury is a teenager confronted with a pretty and dreadfully competent girl who talks to him and treats him like a person rather than a title.   
> He's cheerfully doomed and he knows it.

**Author's Note:**

> As you can see, I’m messing with the backstory a bit, making Mycroft the half-brother of Sherlock and Enola, explaining the seven year age gap between the brothers and also de-creepifying the idea of Miss Harrisson having a crush on the son of a schoolfellow. Thus, Mycroft was the son of Mr Holmes’s first wife, Sherlock was born shortly after the marriage, and Enola was a bit of an oops-baby.  
> Fun fact: Goulden was the maiden name of Emmeline Pankhurst, founder of the Sufferagette movement, mostly because it amuses me to think of Eudoria being an aunt or older sister.  
> And also because I'd forgotten what Eudoria's maiden name was before I was doing the tags


End file.
